This "New Leader's Playbook" column focuses on executive onboarding and BRAVE leadership examples for others to follow. It leverages my own senior line management and consulting experience as well as my books including "The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan". Hope you find examples you can follow. If you have any comments or suggestions, please post them here or email me at gbradt@primegenesis.com.

layout of a social/learning space (Photo credit: University of Michigan MSIS)

Steelcase is in the business of creating work environments, offering workplace products, furnishings and services. As CEO Jim Hackett explained to me in a recent interview, workspace design historically mirrored the organizational chart, with people jockeying to be as close as possible to the seat of all power – the CEO. But now that information revolution has made information the new seat of power, there is much more flexibility in workspace design. Thus, as Hackett explained, the workspace of the future needs to:

Celebrate the shift of what we call the ‘I’ space to the ‘we’ space… Space has to enable and empower information in ways we only imagine… (across) a continuum of I and we work… people need a range of settings to accommodate focused, collaborative and social work in both open and enclosed environments – in other words, a palette of place.

This manifests itself in GoogleGoogle’s corridors set up for impromptu information sharing, in MicrosoftMicrosoft’s celebrating the power of programming in its team settings as people “conquer the code,” and in conference rooms where information has a seat at the table.

Workspace as Leading Indicator of Cultural Evolution

Darwin made it clear that survival of the fittest is not survival of the smartest, strongest or fastest, but survival of those best able to adapt. As organizations adapt to the changing macro environment, their internal environment must change as well. Hackett has seen some examples of this done well in offices including Deloitte University’s in Plano, Texas. As Hackett put it:

Learning represents the strategy of the company.

Deloitte celebrates its expertise across the university facility from the “story wall” in the lobby to the “associate finder” that enables anyone to find anyone else in the massive facility. In many ways, the whole university is one large “we” space.

Allocate Workspace to Issues Instead of to People

Steelcase’s own offices have evolved as the company has changed, and serves as another example of how to use workspaces to communicate and enable corporate culture. When Hackett became CEO in 1994, one of the first things he did was to move all the executives off of the same floor and into a leadership “we” space.

Now, instead of designing traditional offices, Steelcase creates “we” spaces around the three-four most important meta issues. According to Hackett, executives don’t need homes, “command-level projects” do. So there might be a project room for a team working on a merger, product launch or a recall. Instead of people bringing information into meetings with executives, the information stays in the project rooms and executives travel to it. As Hackett explains, they made this shift because:

Innovation requires collective ‘we’ work. To this end, it’s critical to design spaces that not only support collaboration, but augment it (with) spaces that promote eye-to-eye contact, provide everyone with equal access to information, and allow people to move around and participate freely.

Manage Your Environment in Context

Your office environment is not just the context for what you do, it’s an important choice itself. There is no one best environment for all organizations. Instead, plan and put together your office environment as a core component of the BRAVE culture you choose to create. Create an environment that:

Supports behaviors which lead to business productivity.

Enables people to relate to each other and to information the way you want them to relate.

Reinforces your attitude, more severe and hierarchical or more relaxed and fluid as appropriate.

Lives and breathes your organization’s values.

This is a good example of step 2 of The New Leader’s Playbook: Engage the Culture and Your New Colleagues in the Right Context

Be careful about how you engage with the organization’s existing business context and culture. Crossing the need for change based on the context and the cultural readiness for change can help you decide whether to Assimilate, Converge and Evolve (fast or slow), or Shock.

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George, Thank you for sharing your thoughts regarding how important a company’s workspace layout is to its ability to accomplish its goals and stay true to its desired culture. In my work with entrepreneurs, I find many who struggle with office layout. I will share your suggestions with those who truly desire to reach their goals. I really love the project command room concept. Again, many thanks! Holly Magister www.ExitPromise.com

I agree with you and Jim Hackett. Jockeying to get “the office” is one of the many miss-steps leaders can take to set themselves up for failure. Leadership needs to be close to the pulse of the organization, close to people who on daily basis execute the organization’s mission. Leadership needs to be in the trenches with troops, whether physically or technologically.

It is interesting that there is not more of an emphasis in “we” space. In the book “Tribal Leadership” they discuss the differenciation of levels that employees experience. The “I” mentality that I am the best but i dont receive enough support and my team holds me back “level 3″ to the attempt to advance work places to a level 4 attitude that “we’re great” and it is not a team effort with an emphasis on what the company is achieving rather than what the individual is. Also it gives credit to another article

This article is all gobbledygook and jargon with no substance. You get no sense of what the author is trying to communicate. Perhaps he was saying that position is best a functional layout by job function instead of a power centeric hub and spoke with rank determining all? Gee – I just want privacy so I can work without interruption and have a clear shot to the coffee room, bathroom and a view of the window.

Thank you for this, brucewing, I quite agree. This article is the most appalling hand-waving drivel from beginning to end. I just want what you want – such a shame that we don’t have a separate coffee room, or any windows, or insulation from the three conversations usually going on within ten feet. Still, at least we don’t (yet) have to go to the toilet in public and there is always the comforting thought that the architect won a prize…

People’s wants and needs are perfectly simple and they work best when they are fulfilled.